


Giving Up the Gun

by orphan_account



Category: Caprica (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:54:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She checks for her heartbeat every morning without fail.  It is a hard habit to break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Giving Up the Gun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brigid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brigid/gifts).



She checks for her heartbeat every morning without fail.  It is a hard habit to break.

  
*

  
When Tamara was four, she wasn’t afraid of the dark.  She wasn’t afraid of monsters under the bed or any of the short.  Her parents build up enough trust in the Gods that these fears seem insignificant even to a little girl like her.

  
*

  
After three weeks, Tamara realizes she does not have to sleep in New Cap City.  She is not person anymore, but an avatar.  Someone’s twisted creation.  Or idea for amusement.  And ideas do not require sleep, so she stops just for a while.  Just long enough to learn that a sleep cycle is her only piece of normalcy in this life.

  
*

  
Two days before the bombing, Willie and she got into a fight.  It started during breakfast over something Tamara fails to remember now since, by dinner, they were best of friends again.  She also cannot remember who apologized to whom, but given her situation, she is just glad she didn’t die mad at her younger and only brother.

  
*

  
Tamara starts writing letters to her family and friends, shopkeepers she knew from the neighborhood and even her school teachers whenever she feels lonely.  Even though she knows they’ll never receive them, it keeps her busy long enough to forget.  She mentions things she saw in the virtual recreation of the Caprican, silly anecdotes she never shared, and how lost she feels without her family by her side.

  
*

  
Once she got a dozen roses on her doorstep for her fifteenth birthday from an anonymous source.  Shannon was amused.  Joseph.  Well, he was not.  “Aren’t you a little too _young_ to have secret admirers?” he said, inspecting the package.

“ _Dad_ ,” she replies, “they are from Michael from school.  It’s his idea of a joke, and besides, you said you _liked_ him.”

“I did?”

“I think you did,” Shannon chimes in, smiling.

“I don’t think I would say that.”

“But, dad, you _did_.”

  
*

  
The “dead walker” is what she is called now.  Shortly after, they start offering a prize to whoever can kill her permanently.  Tamara asks a player who coined the name.  Instead of answering, he chooses to stab her, hoping to take a piece of the prize.  She shots him on impulse.

  
*

  
Tamara would not say she was _popular_ , though her parents would say otherwise.  She just had her small group of friends, and in turn, they had theirs.  She sort of floated from one group to the next whenever she felt for a change, and that choice did not mean she didn’t love her friends either.  She did, and she always will.

She misses them a little too much is what she believes.

  
*

  
Sometimes she encounters someone who makes her forget where she is.  “Thanks for the help back there,” he says, smiling.  “The name’s Vincent.”

He holds his hand out, and she takes it.  “Tamara,” she replies. “You looked lost.”

“I was.  I mean, sort of.  It turns out my friend’s idea of fun isn’t actually _fun_ ,” Vincent replies, laughing.  “Luckily, I ran directly into you.”

“It was better than getting stabbed,” she laughs, “or shot again.”

“Well, thanks for your help.  You are from Caprica City, aren’t you?  I can tell a Caprican.  Maybe we can meet up once we are out of this game.”

“Maybe” is all she replies with, walking away.

  
*

  
Tamara was ten when she decided she wanted to be a lawyer like her father.  She watched him daily, after she returned from school, working from his law books in his office.  She asked him questions about his court cases, and what would happen he loses.

“They would go back to jail, sweetheart” he said, “and select people would not be too pleased over that.”

“But you tried your best,” Tamara replied, looking up.

“Sometimes you best doesn’t cut it.”

  
*

  
Willie’s birthday celebration was her idea, not that she regrets planning it.  She loves planning parties.  That was something she picked up from her mother.  She can remember all the excitement that came with birthdays, holidays, and random celebrations over anything—her first A in high school, Willie’s first _C_ in middle school.  Really _anything_.

Tamara only wishes her mother and her finished shopping a little bit later.  She only wishes they did not get impatient waiting for the baker and didn’t leave for the train when they did.  She often thinks about how the day could have gone—they could have slept in by twenty minutes; they could have done the grocery shopping near their home first.  They could have done anything but board that train, but they did, and she cannot take that back.

  
*

  
She learns Zoe is searching for her from a couple fans—if you can call them _fans_.  “They say there is another dead walker looking for you,” one says.

“They’re wrong,” she says, reaching for her gun.

“Whoa, we mean no offense in telling you.  She just ask us to pass along the message.”

Tamara aims, then fires her weapon, hitting taller man.  “Consider this my reply.”

  
*

  
Tamara loved going to the theatre whenever she could.  She would drag her mother out on a beautiful, warm day and force her to watch whatever romantic comedy or family drama was playing at the cheap theatres.  She would purchase large buckets of popcorn with enough butter to sink a ship and a couple sodas to wash it down.  Afterward, she give her mother a play by play of her favorite scenes.

“Tamara, I was there,” her mother had said during one of these outings.  “While I enjoy your summaries, I don’t need one.”

“But, mom, you don’t _understand_.  She was, then he came!” she replied in excitement.  “Were you and dad ever that much in love?  That he would cross _planets_ to win your heart?”

“Well, I would think so.”

  
*

  
“Do you think we would’ve met if we were both still alive?” Tamara asks Zoe one day.

“Our fathers apparently did.”

“But that was after the bombing,” she stresses.  “I am asking before the bombing would we have met?”

“Then no, I don’t think so.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you had a happy holiday. And the title has nothing really do with anything. I just like Vampire Weekend.


End file.
